Bedrettin Dalan

Bedrettin Dalan (born 18 July 1941) is a Turkish engineer, former politician and the first mayor of Greater Istanbul. He is the founder of İSTEK Vakfı, a foundation for education and culture, and Yeditepe University in Istanbul.

He is charged in the Ergenekon trials, and is the subject of an Interpol red notice. In late 2011 Germany declined a request to extradite Dalan. Prosecutors claim that Dalan was the organization's "number three", and was one of the architects of the 1997 "post-modern coup".

Bedrettin Dalan was born in 1941 in Eskişehir, Turkey to a family which came from a village of Bayburt Province in eastern Anatolia to work for the Turkish State Railways. After finishing high school in Germencik, Aydin, where he lived with his parents and seven siblings, Dalan attended the Faculty of Maçka at the Istanbul Technical University, and graduated in 1963 with a degree in electrical engineering.

In 1983, he joined Turgut Özal to found a center-right party, the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP). Dalan was elected mayor of Greater İstanbul that was established as a metropolitan municipality on March 23, 1984. He served in this position from March 26, 1984 until March 28, 1989. During this time, he set up the principals of the metropolitan municipality system in Turkey, and invested in the infrastructure of the ever-expanding city of İstanbul such as the sewer system, transportation and recreation areas. The blue-eyed politician is best remembered for his promise "the waters of the Golden Horn will be the same color as my eyes". He served as deputy chairman of the World Local Governments Union and as president of the Organization of the Capitals and Cities of Islamic Countries and also of the World Metropolitans Union. He was listed on the United Nations Environment Programme's Global 500 Roll of Honour in 1987.

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